Best armor perks in Starfield

Choosing the best set of armor in Starfield is like choosing what candy to grab at the candy store: you want all of it, even if it’s not that good, in a broader sense. For most players, it all boils down to two disparate features of the game’s armor, really. The first is how it looks, because nobody’s interested in being a literal space hobo in Starfield. The second, however, is the specific armor perks you end up getting in Starfield.

Starfield handles its loot drops in much the same way as Fallout 76 does. Specifically, while particular types of armor can be found in particular places, they don’t come with static perks. Instead, the game rolls random perks whenever a piece of armor drops, meaning you just don’t know what you’re getting until it’s in your paws.

How does Starfield’s armor system work?

Starfield armor has got several disparate rarity tiers ranging from common to legendary. Nothing new about this system, really, as most anyone familiar with RPG item drop color schemes will know precisely what’s on show here:

• Common – white color
• Rare – blue color
• Epic – purple color
• Legendary – yellow color

This is important because, depending on an armor piece’s rarity, it will roll a different number of unique perks by default. Common armor comes with no perks of its own, while Legendary armor will always have three of them separated into three groups of perks. Starfield player KnightShadePrime has come up with a full list of all of these perks on Reddit, and we’re only going to go over the very best examples in this short guide.

Players interested in learning more about Starfield‘s Legendary-exclusive Perks and effects should check out a separate guide we prepared a while back!

The best armor perks in Starfield

We’ve singled out some of the very best general-purpose armor perks you could get in Starfield:

• Chameleon (Group 1): Turns your character invisible while crouching in stealth.
• Fastened (Group 2): +20 carry capacity
• Auto Medic (Group 2): Automatically uses a med pack when hit and health is below 25%, once every 60 seconds
• Hacker (Group 2): Banks +2 max auto hacking attempts
• Mechanized (Group 3): +40 carry capacity
• Headhunter (Group 3): Deals 25% more damage on the next attack after hitting a target in the head
• Sentinel (Group 3): 75% chance to reduce damage by 50% while standing still

It should go without saying that the specifics of any given best Perk guide will depend entirely on a player’s own preference and gameplay style. However, some of Starfield‘s armor Perks are straight-up better than anything else in a given group. For example, even though getting Combat Veteran is decent enough on most armor pieces due to its passive damage reduction, rolling Chameleon is far handier, as this perk allows you to turn invisible while crouching.

To that end, we’ve decided to stick with the most universally useful and flexible armor Perks for this particular guide. Most Perks are relatively situational and/or serve specific niche coverage, like defence against physical damage. Handy stuff, to be sure, but getting additional carry capacity is probably going to be more useful in moment-to-moment gameplay for most players.

Rerolling armor in Starfield

The really peculiar bit about Starfield‘s handling of armor and armor drops is that they can be rerolled repeatedly in select instances. For example, it’s widely known by now that the Mantis armor is one of Starfield‘s best early progression items, but it’s entirely possible to draw the short stick here and roll a positively rubbish piece of Mantis armor if you’re really unlucky. By quick saving before picking the armor pieces up, though, the game will keep generating new rolls over and over again until you find something you’re happy with. Handy stuff!

The caveat, though, is that this tricky will only work on items that are already spawned and physically present in the game world. Gear that’s spawned inside crates, safes, and other assorted boxes will not be subject to quick-save scumming in this respect, but it’s still a good way to fine-tune your armor perks without too much fuss.